


Mother, Mother

by good_ho_mens



Series: DC One-offs [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Bad Parent Janet Drake, Bad Parent Talia al Ghul, Batbrothers (DCU) Bonding, Damian Wayne Needs a Hug, Dead Janet Drake, Dead Talia al Ghul, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Past Character Death, SO, Tim Drake Needs a Hug, but also not?????, but like, but mostly yes????, fellas its not that sad, guys its complicated, its his mom, its not happy either??, kinda??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:01:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22567492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/good_ho_mens/pseuds/good_ho_mens
Summary: Damian looks offended, crossing his arms in a way that’s almost hugging himself. “Your mother is dead.”“Thanks for the reminder.”“My mother is dead too.”
Relationships: Tim Drake & Damian Wayne
Series: DC One-offs [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1623775
Comments: 13
Kudos: 629





	Mother, Mother

“When Titan almost died, I was extremely remorseful, then he got better, I was still feeling that way for a period of time before it went away.”

Tim looks up from his hands to stare at Damian, standing in his doorway like the demon he is. “...What?”

“In my experience with Grayson and the others, when one wishes to have an… open conversation, they first volunteer their own guarded emotional story first.” Damian says it like he’s teaching someone a lot younger than him, or paraphrasing from a lecture he’s heard before. 

Tim just keeps staring at him. After a few seconds he realizes he should blink and snaps out of it, rubbing his eyes. The carpet becomes incredibly interesting all of the sudden. 

Not even ironically. Had it always been red?

“Drake.”

Tim looks up again, “You’re still here.”

“It’s only fair that you comply with my act of kindness.”

Wow. Tim scoffs. He pulls his legs up into his bed and scoots back against the headboard, watching Damian carefully. 

The ten year old is glaring, but he rocks on his heels and focuses on a spot behind Tim’s head, like he’s nervous. 

“Why are you here?”

“I just told you-“

“Come on, Damian. Even you can admit I’m not stupid. You don’t just decide to open up to people, especially not me.”

Damian looks offended, crossing his arms in a way that’s almost hugging himself. “Your mother is dead.”

“Thanks for the reminder.”

This just makes Damian more frustrated. His throat bobs up and down and he takes a step forward. “My mother is dead too.”

Tim’s eyes widen in the slightest, and his posture slackens. Is that was this is about? “You’ve been thinking about your mom?”

Damian doesn’t answer. 

Tim sighs and rolls his eyes, fine. He’ll play Damian’s game, “When my fish died when I was nine, I cried for a week straight. I haven’t had any pets since then, my dad said I made too much of a fuss over it to get a new one.”

Another step, and Damian is fully in his room. He looks around, and Tim is suddenly very aware of how his room looks. 

The walls are barren, the floor is littered with computer parts and suits he’d been in the middle of upgrading with prototypes. His desk is covered in papers and ink stains from when he’d accidentally break pens as the stress gets to him. 

Tim looks down at his hands, equally stained. It’s been a long week, and he hasn’t slept. 

Damian stops next to Tim’s bed, not making a comment about the room. Which is odd. “What are you tinkering with?” He asks sharply instead. 

Tim frowns. He gets up though, passing Damian one of his Robin shurikens and pointing at a button on it. “When it makes contact with blood it releases a sterilizing toxin that’s strong enough to take out Bane. Still can’t figure out how to make it recognize tampered blood though.”

The twitch of Damian’s shoulders at the mention of Bane don’t go unmissed. Tim won’t admit it, but he’d started working on these after Robin had a particularly nasty run in with the big guy. 

“You should consult father. He’d be able to identify the problem.”

Tim snorts. “I’ll do that.”

“I look forward to using a competent weapon.”

Okay, they might hate each other, but Damian is kind of adorable when he’s not trying to drown him in the golf pond. 

Damian hands the shuriken back, staring at it. 

“Damian, what’s going on?”

“I…” Damian bites his lip. “It is my mother’s birthday today.”

Tim sucks in a breath and crouches down to look up at Damian. “I’m so sorry Damian.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“I’m not.” Tim holds up his hands as a sign of peace. “I get it, I think, what you’re feeling.”

Damian scrunches up his nose and puts his hands on his hips. “How so?”

“Well,” Tim stands again, then rocks back and sits on his bed, tossing the shuriken lightly onto a pile of capes across the room. “My mom might not have been an assassin with a love for pain, but she wasn’t all that great either.”

It takes a second for Damian to get the memo, crawling up on the bed next to Tim. 

Tim leans back against the wall. “She’d call me a disappointment of a Drake, said I made her look bad in front of her rich friends. Sometimes she’d leave with my dad, wouldn’t come back for weeks. I had to fend for myself. It sucked.”

“My mother also believed I was a disappointment,” Damian says quietly, as if surprised someone else understands. 

Tapping his knee anxiously, Tim plows on. “There’s this thing she used to say. That the best kind of people are the ones you never meet. She said it all the time. I still don’t really know what it means.”

Damian contemplates it for a few seconds and tilts his head. “That she hated people?”

Tim laughs. “That wouldn’t be untrue. At one point though, I convinced myself it meant that the people she didn’t really know well were her favorite, and I thought, ‘hey! She doesn’t really know me! I guess I’m her favorite’.”

“That worked?”

“For a little while.”

Looking incredibly and uncharacteristically small, Damian scoots back to get more comfortable on the bed. “Was she… always horrible?”

Tim rubs the back of his neck, eyes stinging from the memories or exhaustion or both he doesn’t know. “No. She wasn’t. Sometimes she’d get back from a trip and tell me to get in nice clothes, and we’d go out for ice cream. Or she’d sit on my bed at night and sing me stupid little songs we made up on the spot. Before some parties she’d straighten my tie and kiss my head and tell me that she loved me. She wasn’t always horrible, and maybe that’s why I stayed so long.”

Damian stares straight ahead, his hands clasped in his lap. “Do you love her?”

“I-“ Tim stops, wiping at his eyes before Damian can see. He clears his throat and ignores the tightness in his chest. “Yeah.”

“Do you hate yourself for it?”

Tim looks down at his little brother, wanting so badly to tell him no, that it’s okay to feel this way, that he doesn’t need to feel guilty. He wants to comfort him and tell him that a mom is a mom, and loving them is natural. If he was Dick, maybe he would. But he’s Tim, and all he manages to get out is a choked, “Yeah.”

Damian nods and hops off the bed. “Get some sleep Drake, you need it.”

If this was two years ago, when Damian first showed up and Tim wanted nothing but to float him down Gotham Canal in a wicker basket, he would’ve been pissed at the response. 

Now though, Tim knows that what Damian said is the equivalent of a normal human beings sincere thank you. 

“Want to watch a movie?”

Damian turns slightly, eyes narrowing, looking for the trap. He stuffs his hands in his pockets. “You need sleep.”

Tim shrugs, “I always sleep better after watching something.”

“False,” Damian argues, but turns back around and climbs onto the bed again. He crosses his arms. “No Bambi.”

Snorting, Tim shakes his head. “Agreed, demon.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“You’re shivering, get under the blanket.”

The next morning, Tim wakes up in an empty room, way later than he would normally. Recalling the events of the night before, he sighs, rolling out of bed. 

He almost steps on the tranq shuriken, yelping and stumbling out of his room and into the safezone. That is not where he put that last night. 

“Demon brat,” Tim mutters, stumbling down the stairs. At least it’s a tranq, and Damian wasn’t actively trying to kill him just because he showed him some affection. 

He makes it to the kitchen without any more incidents, waving at Alfred as he takes the cup of coffee out of his hand. “You’re a lifesaver Alf.”

“Indeed, Master Tim,” Alfred replies, eyeing the coffee with distaste. “I’m pleased you allowed yourself some rest last night.”

Tim shrugs. “Gotta sleep sometime.”

Alfred shakes his head in the way he always does when he thinks one of the boys has said something stupid, so he’s basically shaking his head all the time. He pats Tim’s forearm and nods towards the sitting room. “Master Damian seemed in a hurry this morning, but he left you something by the lounge chair.”

Following Alfreds line of sight, Tim walks into the sitting room and stares in some form of shock at the above average in size tank, filled with at least twenty fish. 

That demon brat. 


End file.
